


Red and Black and Hues of Blue

by harringrov



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Blood, Drinking, Drug Use, Drugs, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harringrov/pseuds/harringrov
Summary: Steve Harrington is a police officer at Hawkins PD, much to the dismay of Billy Hargrove, the part time gym owner & part time illegal fight club point person.When Steve gets word of Billy’s little operation, things in Hawkins get a little more interesting.For the department, for the club, and most definitely for the two men with vested interests and everything — and nothing — to lose.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

He’d spent last summer slinging ice cream and half a year shuffling around at a crummy video store.  
But no more.  
He was ready now. 

After 17 essays, 6 SAT attempts, 4 ACT re-tests, and hours of studying with various tutors, Steve Harrington was happy to say that he had successfully gotten into not one, not two, not three. . . But 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 colleges. 

He was ecstatic. About parties and figuring out what he wanted to do with his life and calling Dustin every other night to catch up and making his parents proud. 

They, however, saw his acceptance letters in an entirely different light. He shouldn’t have been surprised. 

Much to his parents dismay, the schools weren’t Yale or Harvard or “even Cornell. Not even Cornell.”

So, naturally, they said their son could come work for his father or, how’d his mother put it, “Pave his own road to success,” to which his father added, “You know, son, money doesn’t grow on trees. Work for me or find something that’s gonna pay your bills.” 

Steve didn’t remember exactly what his father said after that. It was some form of a detached father’s attempt to maintain control over his disappointment of a son. At least, that’s how he saw it. Always had. Always will. 

He thought it over after that, taking a few days to mull it over in his mind. . . And, of course, bounce everything off of his best friend, Robin, who had lots to say about Mr. and Mrs. Harrington’s decision. 

“It’s all so. . . so fucked, Steve! You got in! To four of your top ten schools! That’s got to count for something to them, right? I mean, sure you’re no ‘future doctor of America’ but—“ 

“Robin!” He cut her off, looking down at his scuffed adidas as he flicked cigarette ash onto the cracked asphalt. 

“Not helping.” 

“Sorry,” she nodded, trying to put a lid on her opinionated ramblings. 

It was quiet for a minute and she joined him by his car, leaning up against the hood with him and nudging his shoulder. 

“Hey, Steve?” She said, softer now, like she knew what he needed to hear. 

He cocked his head over at her, mostly to amuse the girl as he pulled a lanky leg up onto the bumper, his elbow now resting atop his knee as if to say, “Yes?”

“It’s gonna be okay,” she added, offering her sympathy. 

Normally, Steve would’ve brushed it aside because Steve Harrington most definitely did 𝘯𝘰𝘵 need anybody’s sympathy thank you very much. 

But with Robin it was different. Because he knew she meant it. 

The corners of his lips curved up into a little smile as he took another drag from his cigarette, a bad habit he’d forget and then remember when he needed it again. The faint nicotine buzz made his insides warm as he nodded at her sentiment. 

“I know, I know. I just—“ he slumped forward, pushing himself off of his car, pacing slowly, but with purpose, in front of her. 

“I don’t want to go work for my dad. I won’t,” he paused, very certain about that last bit. 

“But the benefits are good and at least I wouldn’t have any student debt, right?” He asked, turning to Robin for her approval. 

She was in the middle of a forced yawn, patting her lips and closed her eyes. 

“I’m sorry, you lost me at 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘴,” she gagged. 

He rolled his eyes. 

“Steve Harrington doesn’t give a fuck about 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘴. That’s your parents talking right there, and I simply won’t have it,” she said, her yawn tapering off into a very sure sounding nagging. 

The worst part was, he knew she was right. She’d hit the nail right on the head. 

“I can’t go to school on my own. You and I both know that our minimum wage salaries aren’t gonna pay for tuition at any of those schools. I can’t afford it. I can’t. But I would spend years working at that damn video store if it meant sticking it to my dad,” he monologued. 

“Maybe I could get a job as one of those sign flippers,” he thought, waving his cigarette as he paced again. 

“You’re definitely not coordinated enough for that. Or qualified. Or lame,” Robin chuckled. 

“Exactly. But they’d be so embarrassed that they’d beg me to quit and go to school,” he plotted. 

She wasn’t buying it. 

“Steve.” 

“Robin.”

She cocked a brow at him and folded her arms. He knew that look. She was seeing right through him, like a thin envelope caught up in sunlight. 

Transparent to her. And flimsy.

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I mean let’s face it. What am I even good at? I hate food and bev, and fuck business, and god knows I can’t write to save my life, those essays made that very very clear. College was gonna help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I’m gonna end up like Hopper worki—“

He fizzled out, and Robin swore she could see the gears turning in his mind. 

“I’m gonna end up like Hopper. . . I’m gonna end up like Hopper!” He dropped his cigarette and shook her shoulders, a manic smile now spreading across his bright face. 

“I’m not following. . . And you’re scaring me,” she said, her brows furrowed.

“Robin,” he snapped, literally waving his fingers in front of her face as he snapped a few times to get her attention. “C’mon. Keep up.” 

Now she rolled her eyes. 

“I’m going to become a cop,” he said, standing up straight, like this was fact and fact alone. 

“I don—“

“Bup bup bup,” he shushed her suddenly. 

“Think about it. Think about how we handled the Russians. And fought all those guys off. And figured everything out. And before that, with the kids. Everything that’s happened. I’m like. . .”

“A ninja?” She teased. 

He nodded, very proud of himself. 

She searched his face for some kind of uncertainty. With him, she could usually spot it right away. But this—this look on his face— this was for real. She smiled and nodded, pondering it over for herself. 

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” She asked.

He was unsure about a lot of things.  
About himself and his relationships and family and love and a whole fuck ton of other things. 

But not this. 

So, he nodded again, folded his hands over his chest, and stood a little taller.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

And he believed it. 

That was all she needed. In the weeks to come, Robin Buckley made it her personal mission to make one very lanky, very clumsy, very hotheaded best friend of hers a police officer. 

And that is exactly what she did.


	2. Chapter 2

His parents were out of town when he graduated from the Police Academy, located at a crummy amphitheater an hour or so away from Hawkins. 

A few nearby towns made that their point place and each of the graduating classes were disperelced throughout Indiana after they’d graduated. Steve had an inkling as to where he’d be headed.

Dustin and Lucas came in the place of this mother and father, sitting in the back and making faces at him and snapping pictures and snapchats of him as he sat on the stage with the others. 

He was grateful for that, especially because halfway through the ceremony Lucas fell out of his chair after Dustin threatened to wipe a crushed bug on his new jacket. 

Dustin was very amused. So was Steve, who stifled a laugh on stage as Lucas waved apologetically at the parents and family friends sitting around him. 

“My apologizes,” he said, with false sincerity and a newfound vendetta against Dustin Henderson. 

Steve was snapped out of his temporary trance as his name echoed out into concert hall’s vast auditorium.

“𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯.” 

He felt his hands get all clammy, smiling like a fool as he pushed himself to his feet and crossed the stage, puffing his chest a bit as he shook a few hands. 

At the end of the line, a stout officer with a burly black mustache pinned Steve’s badge to his new uniform. 

𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍'𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄. 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍. 385 — 

Black letters etched against faux gold. It was perfect.

And Steve was over the moon. 

“Yeah!” Dustin whooped from the crowd as Lucas leapt up next to him, clapping his hands a little to aggressively. 

Steve nodded his head at them and smiled, trying not to trip on his way back to his seat. 

After the ceremony had come to a close, Steve and the two boys piled into his car and began the drive back to Hawkins, listening to music — Dustin had given Lucas the aux after everyone yelled at him for putting on the ‘Cantina Band Trap Remix’ — asking Steve way too many questions, and of course, stopping one too many times to snap pictures by funny signs on the side of the road. Dustin even created a new highlight on his Instagram for the occasion. “𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘴.”

Robin, who was packing to head off to NYU, was waiting promptly for them when they got home. 

She’d been keeping up with them via Lucas’s snapchats and Dustin’s stories, laughing at how much of a dork Steve looked in his uniform. 

————————

Meanwhile, back at the station, Police Chief Jim Hopper hovered over a desk, a cup of coffee and a cigarette in one hand, a pen in the other. 

He hadn’t noticed the ash crumbling down into his mug until the burnt bitter taste of cigarette tainted coffee melted down his throat. 

“Shit,” he grumbled, coughing a bit and dumping the remaining sips of cold coffee into the trash can, wiping his tongue off with the back of his hand and putting out the Camel in the now empty mug.

Preoccupied with his latest case, Hopper hadn’t really been focusing on a whole lot of anything lately. 

It was Jane and work and Jane and work and Joyce and Jane work and work and work. 

Never a dull moment in Hawkins, was there? 

While Steve and Robin and their flock of children celebrated the newly appointed “Officer Harrington”, Jim was racking his brain over an anonymous tip he’d gotten a few days prior pertaining to a certain kid from California and the new gym at the edge of town that’d come into his possession. 

Word on the street was — as crazy as it sounded — underneath the shiny new ring at Hawkin’s Boxing Club and the cases of fighting trophies from the previous owner and the showers in the back that leaked in the winter. . . 

Under all the perfect, new, glistening red and black paint. . . 

There was a fight club. With betting and booze and brass knuckles and blood. Lots of blood. And somehow, Billy Hargrove was at the center of it all. 

According to the tip, that is.

All of it was sending Jim Hopper on a wild goose chase, quite literally. Between running down leads for the first few days and hitting dead ends, it was almost like Billy knew how 𝘯𝘰𝘵 to be found. 

He was a ghost, like smoke in the wind or the dust kicked up by his old camaro. Too fast and too swift and far too clever. 

“There’s got to be something here right?” Jim mumbled to himself, chewing on his pen as he piled through the file he’d compiled. 

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦. . . 

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦. 

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰—

A knock at the door made the chief look up, standing slowly as he saw who it was. A lanky brunette with a shiny new badge stood there, with a tall stature and his hands shoved so far into his pockets Hopper was afraid that they’d rip. 

Then it came to him. Why was he — the police chief — chasing this kid around like a puppet on a string. . . when he had a brand new, eager-to-please, new set of eyes officer standing in his doorway? 

Not only was this Harrington kid eager to start the job, but he also had a history with Hargrove. Old school rivals and all that jazz. Hopper couldn’t believe his luck. This is just what he needed.

Jim smiled to himself as Steve straightened himself out, extending his hand to Hopper. 

“Welcome, aboard, Harrington. I think you’re going to thrive here, kid. Just 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦.”


End file.
